ned to Mrs Varden when they retired for
the night) for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch, and never wished it
done.

The recollections, too, with which they made merry over that long
protracted tea! The glee with which the locksmith asked Joe if he
remembered that stormy night at the Maypole when he first asked after
Dolly--the laugh they all had, about that night when she was going out
to the party in the sedan-chair--the unmerciful manner in which they
rallied Mrs Varden about putting those flowers outside that very
window--the difficulty Mrs Varden found in joining the laugh against
herself, at first, and the extraordinary perception she had of the joke
when she overcame it--the confidential statements of Joe concerning the
precise day and hour when he was first conscious of being fond of Dolly,
and Dolly's blushing admissions, half volunteered and half extorted, as
to the time from which she dated the discovery that she 'didn't mind'
Joe--here was an exhaustless fund of mirth and conversation.

Then, there was a great deal to be said regarding Mrs Varden's doubts,
and motherly alarms, and shrewd suspicions; and it appeared that from
Mrs Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been
hidden. She had known it all along. She had seen it from the first. She
had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principals.
She had said within herself (for she remembered the exact words) 'that
young Willet is certainly looking after our Dolly, and I must look
after HIM.' Accordingly, she had looked after him, and had observed many
little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that
nobody else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it
seemed from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most
consummate generalship.

Of course the night when Joe WOULD ride homeward by the side of the
chaise, and when Mrs Varden WOULD insist upon his going back again,
was not forgotten--nor the night when Dolly fainted on his name being
mentioned--nor the times upon times when Mrs Varden, ever watchful and
prudent, had found her pining in her own chamber. In short, nothing was
forgotten; and everything by some means or other brought them back to
the conclusion, that that was the happiest hour in all their lives;
consequently, that everything must have occurred for the best, and
nothing could be suggested which would have made it better.

While they were in the full gl